I've only just added DXO to my workflow, my main reason was good things I've seen written about PRIME.

I must say, the results from prime are outstanding, the noise reduction and detail recovery, especially at high ISO's is phenomenal.

My current workflow is to import from my SD card into Lightroom as RAW (used to be DNG but doesn't work for DXO). I then sort my images, flag tag bin etc. From there I export straight over to DXO and let it apply the standard corrections. I then PRIME everything I just love the result.

After that, I export everything back to Lightroom as DNG and will tweak from there. Lightroom does much better with highlight/shadow recovery etc, I don't like the DXO results. Images that I want to go insane with may go onto Photoshop from there for even more work.

Basically, I'm using DXO for lens corrections and noise reduction, it does a brilliant job for that, much much better than anything I've ever been able to get in lightroom, and frankly, much better than any noise reduction I've used in Photoshop as well (Topaz, NIK etc). Lightroom is a lot faster and better for everything else imho.

Just to do something different, this image below was processed entirely in DXO, opening the RAW direct in the program and exporting to a final JPG. I had to pull the shadows up a lot and drop the highlights down as welll due to the huge dynamic range in this shot. I can't see a spec of noise, a much better result than anything I could have gotten in lightroom.

OMD-Em5 and the panasonic 20mm lens.

Breakfast on Sunday

Firstly, thank you to everyone for their input in the thread. I too am considering the Elite version to see what I can add to my LR5 workflow especially with deformation, distortion from UWA lenses and also with noise management from the EM1 .... I have never been happy with the ORF files I get from the Oly when it comes to noise, even at ISO 400 I sort of expect better (and I get them from other systems).

But the EM1 is sweet as for travel and general lugging about so a solution would be wonderful. I have a trial version of the Elite version presently and still trying to find my way.

Anyway, my questions relates to your image of the beach scene :

At first glance the image looks a tad soft on account of perhaps the denoising process. What was the ISO you used? And finally, the person in the hat looks a little "squashed" ..... have you tried to do anything with the program to remedy that?

I am very interested to hear your specific thoughts re my queries.

And as for the workflow, your process is pretty much what I had in mind. Shame about having to import the RAW as ORF. I have been doing DNGs for forever.

David

Hi David, thanks for your questions. ISO was base 200, however I had the fstop pretty wide open at around 2.2 I think, Focus landed on the tree so a lot of other items in the shot were not pinpoint. I don't think it was the denoising for the softness, just focus. DxO does some pretty full on lens corrections. This is the Panasonic 20mm lens in use. However having said that, the person in the hat was a bit "squat" so I actually think that is a fair representation of the person. If I have a chance tonight, I'll spit the image straight out of lightroom for you so you can get an idea of what has been done here. I'll also find a similar image and give you a before, DXO after, and LR after where noise reduction makes a difference.